


The Places We Call Home

by Emerald Embers (emeraldembers)



Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Canon Disabled Character, Institutionalized Ableism, M/M, Masturbation, neurodivergent character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 05:25:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3966037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeraldembers/pseuds/Emerald%20Embers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sex, intimacy, and thoughts about what the future could hold for two men in one body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Places We Call Home

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for The Evil Within: The Consequence (hence Ruben referring to himself as such rather than going by Ruvik), and references to canon character deaths and canon-typical violence.

Ruben had never thought of sex as something he might take a personal interest in. Puberty had nearly torn him apart, burnt tissue too new to be ready for growing and stretching, and he remembered screaming himself hoarse on nights when even breathing hurt. His hormones had been nothing but an inconvenience to him, and he'd had no peers to compete with or form attachments to. Adolescence was a lonely, painful experience.

There was no poetic, dreamy blossoming from innocence into adulthood for Ruben, and he supposed perhaps that was part of why Leslie appealed to him when others hadn't. What Leslie had seen in his youth and experienced in hospice and hospital visits had trapped Leslie in a similar way to how Ruben was trapped; they were both capable of growth, physically and mentally, but they were also still children frozen in the last seconds before everyone they ever cared for was destroyed.

Ruben stroked his hand up and down Leslie's arm, kissed the back of Leslie's neck. If he opened his real eyes, their shared eyes, he would lose this; they could only coexist easily in moments like this, where they were still somewhere between asleep and awake.

Ruben rolled his hips against Leslie's, slow and lazy, testing how it felt, how Leslie reacted to the slide of skin on naked skin.

Intimacy was not new to their relationship, but sex was a recent development, and Ruben was still adapting to its introduction. It was difficult to feel how Leslie was warm and soft and not think _weak_ , or, more accurately, _prey_.

Ruben leant up to suck on Leslie's earlobe, and Leslie let out a quiet moan that Ruben capitalised on with a gentle bite, feeling Leslie tense up before shivering.

"Is that a good shiver?" he asked, smirking at Leslie's shy little nod before biting again, sliding his hand down to Leslie's hip and feeling its barely-there curve. A pulse of nervous energy from Leslie made the world around them waver, and Ruben slid his hand lower still to grip Leslie's thigh, squeezing it in a comforting gesture until Leslie settled enough for him to let go.

Sometimes Leslie locked himself out of their world by accident, and there had been occasions where Ruben had spent hours searching through memories and fantasies, trying to find where Leslie was lost.

Ruben sat up, giving Leslie space and time to anchor himself in their world while he looked over Leslie's body, admiring how the view differed from what reflections showed him in reality. Patches of untreated eczema ran across Leslie's shoulders, stress-induced scratches criss-crossed his arms, and there were marks from poorly fitted restraints around his wrists and ankles, a map of red on bleach-white skin. Ruben wondered if it was pride, familiarity, or something deeper that made the two of them keep their wounds in dreams.

Leslie was beautiful, and Ruben wanted to break him all over again; to sink his teeth into Leslie's neck and tear out his throat; to slit open that long, soft belly and study all the red and purple jewels hidden inside.

Leslie reached for Ruben's hands, brought them to his throat, and Ruben flexed his fingers once before bowing his head in something like guilt.

So many people deserved to die in agony, but Leslie was not one of them. If Leslie was like them, he wouldn't be worthy of Ruben's attention. If he was like them, he wouldn't be -

Compatible.

Another, stronger pulse from Leslie took out the lights, the pulse after that bringing sprays of hot water that quickly soaked them both.

"Where are we?" Ruben asked, comforted that Leslie had not replaced the mattress beneath them both with anything hard or cold, and Leslie's rough-skinned fingertips caught behind Ruben's ears, pulled him into a heated kiss. Leslie's cock pressed hard against his thigh, a sure sign Leslie had not changed their world out of fear, and Ruben reached down to give it a few light, teasing strokes before repeating, "Leslie? Where are we?"

"Secret," Leslie said, closing his eyes and pulling Ruben into another kiss, a rush of memories flooding through Ruben as if he could taste them on Leslie's tongue.

_hands in hair, hands on back, wish he would wash more, lips by ear, "Meet me here at midnight", darkness and cold tiles, wet hot skin and wet hot mouth and yes, please, yes, yes_

Ruben snarled, jealous for a moment before he remembered that Beacon's showers were cut off at ten; Leslie's memory was of a different hospital, a different time, and whoever the encounter had been with was not significant enough for Leslie to remember his name.

Ruben braced his hands either side of Leslie's chest, mouthed his way down it until he could nuzzle a trail through the dusting of coarse hair on Leslie's stomach. Leslie would remember his name. Even if they hadn't been permanently connected by STEM, Leslie would remember his name.

He'd be damned before he'd let Mobius' nickname stick.

Leslie's cock nudged against his chin and Ruben dipped his head to kiss it, feeling the smear of precome across his lips before he licked it away and took Leslie's hips in his hands, pinning them to the mattress to keep Leslie from bucking up as Ruben sucked him down.

Leslie's reactions were endlessly fascinating to Ruben because he wasn't inclined towards acting and made a poor actor on the occasions he tried. Leslie grabbed at the mattress, at Ruben's head, at his own hair, never quite deciding what to do with his hands; they talked for him, grasping when he wanted more, flexing and unflexing when he was uncertain, shaking when he was overwhelmed.

Watching them told Ruben more than the helpless little moans and grunts that escaped Leslie on each drag of Ruben's lips over his cock, each stroke of Ruben's tongue, each long, hard, suck.

Ruben had associated sucking cock with submission for years, an unfortunate side-effect of what education he had on the subject coming from material written by smaller minds than his own, but practice had shown him its value as a tool of dominance. Ruben had been disgusted with himself the first time he had looked at Leslie's cock and wondered how it would feel in his mouth, but when he gave in to curiosity he soon realised the trust required on Leslie's part, the faith that Ruben would not bite.

Ruben hummed in pleasure, fully aware that he _liked_ sucking Leslie's cock. The slide of Leslie against his tongue, the twitching, dripping liveliness of him was intoxicating, and he could feel the shower of hot water across his back intensify, seeming to reflect Leslie's own reactions. Leslie's thighs trembled whenever he got close to coming, and Ruben closed his eyes, concentrating as he carefully, lightly scraped his teeth up Leslie's cock before running his tongue around the head and sucking hard, finishing Leslie off.

Ruben swallowed and swallowed until Leslie's cock slipped out of his mouth, pressed a last kiss to its softening flesh before he crawled back up Leslie's body, concerned but not surprised by Leslie's continued sobbing for breath. Leslie had covered his face with both hands, the water around them drying up more with each passing second, and Ruben lowered his weight carefully to cover as much of Leslie as possible.

Hypersensitivity was a familiar problem when dealing with Leslie, and Ruben had found Leslie reacted well to pressure in such moments, took comfort in feeling covered or swaddled. Ruben nuzzled his nose against the fingers covering Leslie's own, waiting for Leslie's breathing to settle, mindful of how his own cock throbbed for attention but determined it could wait.

"I want to tear you apart," Ruben said, calm and quiet, his nuzzling turning into a series of kisses up and down each of Leslie's fingertips.

Once Leslie had relaxed, Ruben lifted his weight off Leslie just enough to fit his hand between them both, wrap it around his own cock and start pumping it, and Leslie in turn moved one hand to Ruben's face, still shielding his eyes with the other despite the near total darkness of their world.

Ruben tightened his grip once the painful edge to the throbbing in his cock had eased, frowned when he felt Leslie's thumb slide into his mouth, tugging at his lip.

"Tear you apart," Leslie said, kissing the skin above and below his thumb, "Tear you apart."

Leslie uncovered his eyes, stared blankly for a moment before something like realisation lit up his features. "Ruben. Ruben, tear me apart."

Orgasm hit Ruben like a freight train, had him spilling wet over his hand, Leslie's thigh. Leslie's pained gasp when Ruben bit down on his thumb only made him come harder, and he didn't so much kiss Leslie through the aftershocks as he crashed their mouths together, biting at Leslie's lips, sucking at his tongue, hungry for more than he could ever have.

Whatever the hunger was, it soon stole away Ruben's strength, left him slumped against Leslie's chest and listening to the beat of his heart.

The beat was synchronised with his own, and always would be.

One of Leslie's hands stroked idly at the back of Ruben's head, down his neck and across his shoulder, before tugging at Ruben's arm until Leslie could link their fingers.

It was a childish romantic gesture, out of place there in the dark on a damp, come-stained mattress, but Ruben appreciated it. There was a living stillness in the moment, bodies tangled and unmoving but for breath, and Ruben felt a bruising ache at realising he'd felt that way with someone before.

They hadn't been naked, or doing anything that might lead them in that direction. They had been taking turns climbing ladders in the barn and jumping onto the hay bales below, faces and limbs covered in itchy little scratches from the rough treatment, and the summer heat had made even the shaded corners of the barn feel like an oven.

They had laughed themselves sore before sitting down together, his head resting on her shoulder, and he had thought, _I love you_.

Leslie was not Laura. He was gentle and beautiful, but he was not Laura.

Ruben rolled off Leslie and sat up, drew his knees up to his chest and held them. "I need to wake up." _I don't want to_ went unsaid.

Normally Leslie was little more than a whisper at the back of his mind whenever Ruben woke up, and time had left him fearful that one day Leslie might not be there at all. It was an uncomfortable, unfamiliar fear; he had been too young to fear Laura's loss when she was taken from him.

Leslie sat up beside him, pressed a kiss to Ruben's shoulder. "Wake up," Leslie said, one hand rubbing circles at the base of Ruben's spine. "Leslie wants to go home. Take me home."

Neither of them had a home to call their own anymore, murder stealing away Leslie's and vengeance burning down Ruben's, but it was something to consider. He would destroy Mobius, or he would not, and he had given little thought to the practical aftermath of success.

Ruben opened his eyes to daylight filtering in through filthy blinds, highlighting dust motes in the air like glitter, and he stretched out on bedsheets that clung wetly to his front, feeling the ghost of Leslie's hand on his back.

He had money, and knew all too well how to hide. Leslie didn't want much; warmth and a roof would be enough.

If they survived Mobius, he could find a place for them to live.

If he was truly lucky, they might get to call it a home.


End file.
